It has been said that there are two things in life that no one can escape: death and taxes.

Dr. Joshua D. Stephany

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Orange County, Florida, Chief Medical Examiner Dr. Joshua D. Stephany provided some insight about what happens to a body after a person takes his or her last breath.

Appearance

Stephany said skin color takes on different hues and tones depending on the environment and the state of the body at the time of death. The skin will begin to turn grayish after the blood stops pumping. If the person was previously ill, bacteria can spread faster and show a greenish hue.

Rigor Mortis

He said muscles also stiffen because they require energy to relax.

Rigor mortis is a chemical reaction causing the corpse’s joints and muscles to stiffen post-mortem.

As an example, arms have more muscle tissue than eyelids, so a few hours after death, it’s easier to close someone’s eyes than it would be to move their arm.

Fingernails

Fingernails do not grow after death. The perception that fingernails grow after death is because the skin around the nail beds shrinks and retracts, Stefany said.

Decomposition

"Temperature and humidity are a couple of factors that determine how quickly the body starts to decompose," Stephany said. "In places like Egypt, where the humidity is very low, bodies begin to mummify. In warm and humid climates, the corpse begins to break down faster than in cooler, drier areas.

"Once we get a body, it goes into a 40-degree cooler, slowing down the decomposition process. It’s like when you buy meat at the supermarket, you put it in the refrigerator so it doesn’t go bad."

Bacteria

Although the skin is the biggest organ in a body, the inside organs break down first.

"Digestive organs, like the pancreas, liver and your gut, have digestive juices normally used for breaking down food. But after death, they can leak out cells and start breaking down your own tissue. Bacteria that is normally in your digestive tract and causes no problems in life will begin to multiply and produce excess gas in death," Stephany said.

When bacteria builds up, so does methane.

The gas in a body is not capable of a combustible explosion, but the pressure builds and the body bloats.

A medical examiner will often make a slit and stand back to avoid the sudden escape of gas and odors.

Alive or dead?

"You hear stories about someone being transported to a medical examiner’s office after someone declared them dead, and they come back to life," Stephany said. "Those stories have been debunked. If true, then whoever took their pulse didn’t do it correctly."

Stephany shared an insider’s moment from the morgue.

"Being by yourself in a morgue can be a little weird, especially at night," he said. "As a resident, I was called out to the morgue at 2 a.m. to retrieve a brain for an Alzheimer’s research brain bank, and a decedent’s hand caught my lab coat pocket and fell off the table. It freaks you out and can be quite startling. Actually, any time you are alone with a dead body, it’s weird."